[grndmstr_c]

I haven't been completely sold on the way Rick has handled Booby this season, but I will say that Rick's decision to keep Booby in there against Phoenix until the 4-minute mark of the 4th in a tight game when he was clearly struggling offensively is exactly the kind of coaching move that can help bring a young guy successfully through an otherwise heavy-handed program of player development.

If you withhold minutes from a player when that player doesn't contribute like you want in only a particular subset of the game's many elements, you're necessarily going to be benching the player even when he's doing other things that are clearly helping the team win. That by itself can be a hard thing for the player on the learning end (not to mention the fan base) to wrap their head around. But if you follow that up by rewarding that player for attending to that critical subset of game elements with extended, important minutes - even when they're visibly struggling with the things they've frequently done well in the past - now you're sending a complete and cohesive message that they can understand at a level that goes deeper than their intellect. And that's good coaching.